by Tuesday 25th December
This was my first Christmas Day in the UK for 16 years, and what an incredible day it was. My brother and sister-in-law had it all planned with military precision. It was the first time they’d done Christmas dinner, but they could have fooled me. We had Eggs Benedict (their own eggs, of course) with salmon for breakfast, an unexpected treat. My brother followed our late uncle’s method for cooking the turkey: two hours in the oven and as long again on the barbecue. It was melt-in-the-mouth stuff. Before long the Christmas pudding (which is always a highlight) was eaten and the dishes were washed, and it was back to TV watching. Michael McIntyre’s show was really funny (especially this cooking prank), as was Dad’s Army, which is now almost half a century old. As for presents, I got some kids’ books and the Bananagrams game (for my lessons), a backpack, some cash from Mum and Dad (it’s a bit ridiculous to be getting cash from my parents at my stage in the game, but there you go) and all kinds of stuff to help tame my beard. Christmas Day 2018 will live long in my memory.
Wednesday 26th
We walked off our Christmas dinner by doing a tour of Poole, which I quite liked. I discovered that gin bars had become a thing. Another trip to Primark, then it was TV time. We watched programmes about Ken Dodd and Torvill & Dean, although the highlight was the BFG which was beautifully done. We played a few games of Bananagrams.
Thursday 27th
A third trip to Primark to get a suitable suitcase for my flight back to Romania, and then it was time to say goodbye to Poole, and my very house-proud brother and sister-in-law. It was great to see them, but being in someone else’s territory for any length of time always makes me anxious. The journey to my parents’ flat in St Ives was a long one. Many people were driving home after Christmas, but many others were simply shopping. Consuming. Sometimes we barely moved. A journey of 180 miles took over six hours, including the two short stops we made. At least the road signs in the UK are good. It’s one of those things I took for granted when I lived there, but I now see that they’re brilliantly designed to be read at 70 mph. The little details like the hook on the lower-case ‘l’ that helps make for a friendly, readable font, the yellow route numbers on a green background for A-roads, the calming blue motorway signs, the airport icon that also functions as an arrow: these things all add up. They save lives.
Friday 28th
In the morning I called on some family friends, the couple who came to Romania in 2017 for the road trip we did, and we had a very enjoyable chat. They then came to my parents’ flat in the evening for so-called nibbles (in reality a proper meal). In the middle I went for a walk with Dad around the meadow and back through Hemingford.
Saturday 29th
At 10am we went to my aunt’s place in Earith. It’s been sad to see her world get progressively smaller over the years. She doesn’t have meaningful relationships with either of her children, who are now both in their late forties. She does, however, have a soft spot for both me and my brother, perhaps because we’re harmless. On this occasion she wasn’t too bad, and even in her worst periods she’s always had the knack of making people laugh. We didn’t stay too long. In the afternoon we called into Homebase where my parents spent ages not choosing some wallpaper, and then drove through some villages I hadn’t seen in a couple of decades, such as Abbots Ripton and Woodhurst. We stopped at Broughton and went for a walk there. My brother sent Mum links to properties in St Ives. He’s always felt bitter about my parents moving to New Zealand in 2003, and now that they make regular trips to back to the UK, he senses that they might want to move back permanently. I think that would be very unlikely and a bad move: the UK isn’t a great country to get old in.
